A weekly call to prayer for Muslims will be heard at Duke University starting Friday, school officials said.
Members of the Duke Muslim Students Association will chant the call, known as adhan or azan, from the Duke Chapel bell tower each Friday at 1 p.m. The call to prayer will last about three minutes and be “moderately amplified,” officials said in a statement Tuesday.
“The adhan is the call to prayer that brings Muslims back to their purpose in life, which is to worship God, and serves as a reminder to serve our brothers and sisters in humanity,” said Imam Adeel Zeb, Muslim chaplain at Duke. “The collective Muslim community is truly grateful and excited about Duke’s intentionality toward religious and cultural diversity.”
The article doesn’t say where the prayers will be recited following the azan, whether in the chapel or in some other location. At least, unlike Cairo, the sermon will not also be broadcast.
How very Duke. Welcome to the world of Grand Ayatollah Hauerwas.
A better place than the chapel tower might be the tower of the basketball court.
Are they one of the universities that ban Christian groups as being too exclusive? Does anyone know?
Duke has [url=http://news.yahoo.com/duke-cancels-plan-muslim-call-prayer-tower-205717099.html]cancelled the plan[/url]. Alumni called and wrote to complain, and the Rev. Franklin Graham publicly suggested donors should withhold funds. The call to prayer will now be chanted by students on the grass in front of the chapel before they repair to a room somewhere inside for the prayers. Hindus and Buddhists have apparently also held events in chapel rooms, so this places the Muslims on the same footing.
#5 Katherine – thanks for the link to the Grand Mufti’s about face.
“The chapel is identified by the school as a Christian church but also hosts Hindu services and has been used for Buddhist meditations.”
How very Duke. How very syncretist. How very Episcopalian.
Pageantmaster, the school is mostly associated with the United Methodists. The Rev. Graham pointed out that people who donated to the chapel intended it to be a Christian church.
Either you are visiting the colonies or you are posting at 2:25 a.m. I am so sorry if insomnia haunts you.
Thanks Katherine – I have noted the Anglican links however including the Wells’es recently shipped back to us for some scheme or other.
I am a night owl Katherine. Always up for a hoot.
Anyway, Duke now seems to be a madrassa. Al hum dililah.